I knpw a lot of the posts here are tongue in cheek and I'm all for having some fun--but having  some knowledge of the Cote D'Ivoire and most particularly its Indigenous Peoples--and more recently its serious political problems I find it hard to be very lighthearted about the very dangerous lives Ivoirians are leading right now.


Here is a glimpse of the REAL problem--

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- The piles of garbage are chest high outside a marketplace where an ongoing political crisis has halted trash collection and led to a cholera outbreak that has already left seven people dead.

The United Nations has identified cases of targeted killings since Ivory Coast's disputed election in November, but the political battle for the presidency has now started claiming more victims - these ones killed preventable diseases like cholera and yellow fever.

Public hygiene has completely broken down in the Adjame district of Abidjan, said Dr. Bamba Coulibaly, the head of the epidemiological monitoring division with the national institute for public hygiene.

"All this garbage must be removed from the streets of Abidjan immediately," he said.

Both incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo and his opponent Alassane Ouattara claim to have won a Nov. 28 presidential election runoff, though the international community has endorsed Ouattara's victory. Their battle for power has led to violent demonstrations."


Here's the link--


www.seattlepi.com/health/1500ap_af_ivory...


Go back to your fun--but the people of the Ivory Coast are suffering--and have been suffering for some time.

Maybe a little sympathy would be in order.....

IMO it is an error to talk about "the problems of Africa" (as is often done) when Africa is a HUGE continent  with NUMEROUS countries and every country is unique.

My post speaks of the conditions in Ivory Coast whose Traditional Peoples (the Dan/N'gere Peoples fo example) I have studied in some detail--I have even known some Ivoireans.


It is not appropriate--in my personal viewpoint--to be joking about such a dire and dangerous situation--though I can understand that most people have no knowledge of the Cote d'Ivoire and its Peoples and its serious political problems that are contributing to the scarcity of chocolate.

I think you got it, BDboy.

Feb 8, 2011 -- 3:00PM, writingal1 wrote:

Oh I got that too.

But I still think most of the people who are joking have no idea why the people of the Cote D'Ivoire are in the dire straits they are right now.

In the same way that I've been wondering since I posted here if most Americans have ANY idea why it is that Americans have/had access to healthy fruit grown in Central and South America for the past 100+ years while the people who live in those countries are and have been dirt poor and unable to afford the healthy fruit that is grown and harvested in their very own countries.

I wonder how many people even know--for example--the significance of the phrase--"United Fruit Company" in relation to this topic.


We prosper in this country on the backs of others and with the might of the US Marines to get us our healthy/enjoyable food--and right now it does not seem like a "joking" matter--no matter who the smiles are supposed to be for.

Certainly they're not for the Ivoireans...

I for one am aware of the price that other cultures pay for my convenient American diet. That's one reason I'm working toward localizing my diet. I'm hoping that someday we can have a more equitable arrangement with other nations, even though it will result in more expensive food imports. One benefit of such a thing is that Americans will have to eat less food.

More and more Americans are learning about the dark underside of our food.

"But I still think most of the people who are joking have no idea why the people of the Cote D'Ivoire are in the dire straits they are right now."


But of course we do. The one word answer is tribalism.